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i love it when you find an album that makes you perk your ears up from the other side of the room. my fanhood of joni mitchell has been growing steadily for the past 6 years or so (blue is in my top 20 all-time fav albums), but i’ve gotten to the point where i’m starting to have to reach for the more obscure stuff. dog eat dog is one of the albums she did in the 80’s, and it’s been unjustly panned b/c joni unabashedly turned her back on acoustic guitars and used all the slick, totally 80’s sounds. i can imagine a lot of 80’s music can sound coldly synthetic, but this album, despite the occasional stentorian soapbox ranting and a few mumbled lyrics, is quite moving and sounds lovingly crafted. one of my fav tracks is “lucky girl”, that’s simply lovely, 80’s and jazzy (!). i love this lyric:

Wise guys
Shy guys
And sly lover boys
With big bad bedroom eyes …
I never loved a man I trusted
As far as I could pitch my shoe
‘Til I loved you

joni’s def. one of those songwriters who shine no matter what medium they’re writing in. i have to say i like this album better than some of the more famous ones, like court and spark (zz).